Gardening log
No-one else is likely to find this interesting, but it is useful for me to keep a record of what was done when in an easily accessible place.
Anyone referring to it as a "glog" is silly and should be mocked.
First, a summary of past and future plans.
Plans
| Sowing time on packet | Sow in succession? | Frost tolerant? | Sown | Approx. min. germ. time |
| Chilli | Feb->Mar | no | no | 9/2, 8/3, 25/3 | 7 |
| Pak Choi | Mar->Apr, Jun->Aug outdoors | yes | yes | 9/2, 25/3, 18/5 | 7 |
| French beans[1] | "Speedy": Feb in heat, Apr indoors | no | no | 1/3, 30/3 | 5 |
| French beans[1] | "Blue Lake": Apr->Jun | no | no | 8/3, 30/3, 24/4 | 5 |
| Basil | Feb->Jun | no | no | 1/3, 8/3 | 8 |
| Sweetcorn | Apr->May | yes | no | 1/3, 8/3, 30/3 | 5 |
| Broccoli | Mar->Jun | yes | yes | 28/2, 8/3, 17/5 | 3 |
| Mushrooms[2] | all year | | no | |
| Aubergine | | no | no | 1/3, 8/3 | 8 |
| Spinach[3] | Mar->mid June, Aug->Sep outdoors | yes | yes | 8/3, 10/4(o), 17/5 | 7 |
| Rocket | | yes | yes | 8/3, 18/5 | 3 |
| Courgettes | Mar->Apr | no | no | 25/3, 24/4 | 4 |
| Lettuce | | yes | yes | 25/3, 17/5, 18/5 |
| Coriander | | yes | | 25/3, 18/5 |
| Land Cress | | yes | yes | 13/4 | pah |
| Calendula | | no | | 4/5 | ~4 |
| African Marigold | | no | | 4/5 | ~4 |
[1]This time last year the beans took ages to germinate indoors.
[2] Last lot failed to do anything. Try a more constant temperature this time (plastic bubble wrap or cardboard box).
[3] Might cover these with cloche to speed up germination outdoors.
Things that I have learnt
- Seeds sown in very small pots dry out very quickly so you need to keep them somewhere you walk past often, otherwise you'll forget to water them.
- Slugs are a pain, even in early April.
- Tomatoes are prone to blight and prevention is better than cure.
- Picking fiddly crops like French beans is surprisingly time consuming. Should pick in advance and keep in the fridge. Maybe big beans (runner or broad) are better for this reason.
- The yield of a sweetcorn plant is often disappointing.
- You will probably be able to grow only a tiny fraction of all the food you eat, so concentrate on things that are disproportionately expensive in the shops (salads, herbs), that benefit the most from being fresh (mushrooms), are unusual, look nice, etc.
- Plaid shirts and striped pants rarely make a positive fashion statement.
- Non-hardy things like beans can be damaged even if the temperature does not go below freezing. It only got to -1°C when the fleece was on (which is hopefully above freezing underneath), and down to 3°C when it wasn't on, and they were still damaged
- Plant all your frost intolerant plants outside together (unless there are other reasons for not doing so), so if a frost is forecast you can cover them with fleece more easily.
- If you try and sow (or plant out, etc.) things slightly out of season, make sure you also sow them at the correct time as a backup plan.
- One of a slug's favourite foods is marigolds. They love them so much you might consider planting them next to your food crops so they don't eat those, and it provides a convenient place to pick them off from.
Saturday 9th Feb 2008
It's been sunny (though cold) for a few days and weather forecast is for more of the same, so I will attempt to make an early start on some seeds indoors.
I did three kinds of chilli pepper: Purple Tiger and Cayenne and Unknown, plus Pak Choi. The Cayenne seed packet says you can sow in February, but the Pak Choi only says March so may well fail. The seeds are cheap, it's worth a try.
I put some vermiculite on top to stop them drying out.
Thursday 21st Feb 2008
The Pak Choi germinated in about a week. No sign of the chillies yet.
Sunday 24th Feb 2008
Dug manure into garden in preparation for planting things out later.
Wednesday 27th Feb 2008
I got fed up waiting for the chillies, so put them in a heated propagator*, and within 24 hours, there was a small shoot from one of the Cayennes!
*(bought from B&Q and seemingly made from just enough plastic not to fall apart, but it was very cheap so I'm quite happy)
Thursday 28th Feb 2008
Sowed broccoli in heated propagator.
Saturday 1st March 2008
Sowed beans, sweetcorn, aubergines and basil in heated propagator.
Sunday 2nd March 2008
Two broccoli seeds germinated already. All Cayennes up, one or two Purple Tigers.
Saturday 8th March 2008
Progress. The first bean and sweetcorn germinated in just 5 days.
I had put the basil in very small peat pots, which dried out quickly in the heated propagator. I've moved them to the other one which I've set on a timer to be on only 2/3 of the time, but I might have killed them off.
Some more sowing followed: sweetcorn, French beans, aubergines, basil, chillies, spinach, broccoli, rocket. This time I mixed the vermiculite into the soil. This should prevent large swings in dampness.
Sunday 9th March 2008
Some aubergine and basil now germinated. Obviously didn't kill it all off. Took two pots out of propagator as they were developing some kind of fungus. Thought other (larger) propagator was too warm, so set it to be on 2/3 of the time as well.
Friday 21st March 2008
I've been gradually moving seedlings into my new cold frame (£40, Van Hage garden centre) over the past week. I put two bottles of water in there to smooth out temperature variations - don't know how big that effect will be though. If I get round to it, I'll make some sort of automatic ventilation device so it doesn't overheat in direct sunlight.
Planted out some of the spinach seedlings into the raised bed, with a propagator lid on top for protection against wind, frost and, apparently, hail.
Tuesday 25th March 2008
Sowed courgettes indoors. Sowed coriander, lettuce (sangria), and more pak choi outdoors in the cold frame. Moved seed tray (containing chillies, broccoli, basil, rocket) into cold frame.
Sunday 30th March 2008
Bought another cold frame (£15, B&Q; it was a bit of a pain to assemble). Planted beans out in raised bed, because they're too tall to go in the cold frame, and they need more sun than they get indoors. Wrapped them in gardening fleece to protect from frost. Sowed more beans, sweetcorn.
Saturday 05th April 2008
Sunday 13th April 2008
Sowed Land Cress. Potted out chillies into trough. Planted sweetcorn in raised bed. The early-sown Pak Choi is looking a bit miserable now, except for one or two specimens. Maybe treating them as individual seeds and sowing in little pots was a bit hopeful; they should be scattered over an area so you don't care about the failures, especially if you're sowing at the wrong time of year. Set beer traps for slugs.
Saturday 19th April 2008
Update.
Thursday 24th April 2008
Beans and sweetcorn in garden still look pathetic. I'm only not removing the beans because I don't have anything yet to replace them. Beans and courgettes indoors are looking good, courgettes even have flowers(!). Sowed more beans and courgettes indoors. A couple of the chillies I planted out are displaying some of the going white and wilting problem that the others had.
It's been warm this week, and will be for a while, so I've left the cold frames open to let the sun and rain in and stop them overheating. I'm not going to plant non-hardy things out in the garden yet, though.
Saturday 26th April 2008
Re-potted climbing(x2) and dwarf beans(x1) into big pots. Left outside, but took in a couple of days later because of cold. Will put them out when the night time minimum is 7°C or more (arbitrary figure).
Thursday 01st May 2008
Planted broccoli out into garden. Then it got hailed on and lightly bruised. Land cress sown 18 days ago has not shown up yet.
Saturday 03rd May 2008
Re-potted courgettes, and two aubergines. The aubergines have hardly grown - still only a few leaves. Used a mixture of Miracle-gro compost, multi-purpose compost, manure, composted vegetable matter, and vermiculite. Put a layer of sphagnum moss in each pot. If there's a hot summer, this should retain moisture quite well.
Sunday 04th May 2008
Sowed Calendula and African Marigold.
~Thursday 08th May 2008
Replaced dead chilli in trough with newer one.
Sunday 11th May 2008
Decided there wasn't going to be any more frost and planted climbing beans and newer courgettes into raised bed. Put french and dwarf beans into pots on patio - dwarf ones were previously inside and had started to flower, while the bigger one from the same batch that was outside had not flowered.
Saturday 17th May 2008
Planted French Marigolds (bought from garden centre) in and around beans and sweetcorn in the hope they will deter aphids, which attacked them last year.
Sowed lettuce and spinach in spare bits of raised bed. Sowed broccoli and lettuce in the trough that the Land Cress was sown in, which never germinated.
Sunday 18th May 2008
Sowed lettuce, rocket, pak choi and coriander in two troughs.
Thursday 29th May 2008
Coriander has developed thinner leaves that indicate it's running to seed. Pak Choi has been doing so for a while; I pinched off most of the flowers to try to prevent this, but have allowed a few to flower. Hopefully successive sowings will not suffer this problem.
Large amounts of rain (now apparently at an end) seem to have induced a general growth spurt.
Thursday 12th June 2008
Half plant, half slug.
Tuesday 15th July 2008
Fed containers and raised bed with Tomorite. Did this for the first time 2 or 3 weeks ago.
Wednesday 30th July 2008
Sowed dwarf beans for hopeful end of season harvest. Smaller things are easier to protect against frost.
Wednesday 6th August 2008
It's been humid with frequent rain for the last couple of weeks, so there's a danger of fungal infections. Powdered tomatoes with Bordeaux Mixture to prevent blight. Also powdered it onto a sweetcorn plant and a courgette leaf which had some fungus/mildew on. I should have wetted it first, really.
There are a couple of small chilli fruits.
Friday 8th August 2008
Noticed mildew on courgettes was worse than I thought. Cut off several leaves that weren't looking too healthy - this also lets air flow more easily. Sprayed courgettes with wetted Bordeaux Mixture, all over them this time.
The bean that I've been spraying for black aphids for a while is not producing many beans, probably due to having its sap sucked.
Calendula have black aphids, have sprayed those too.